1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toner collecting apparatus and a cartridge structured so as to transport and discharge toner collected in a container through a discharge pipe, and also relates to an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A toner collecting apparatus is used, for example, in an image forming apparatus using an electrostatic latent image, such as a printer, a copying machine, and a facsimile. In the image forming apparatus, an electrostatic latent image is formed on a photosensitive member, the electrostatic latent image is visualized into a toner image by a toner developing device, and the toner image is transferred to and fixed on a recording sheet to obtain an intended recorded substance. A part of the toner supplied onto the photosensitive member from the developing device remains on the photosensitive member, and hence, the toner is removed by a cleaning mechanism to be collected in a toner collecting apparatus.
The toner collecting apparatus is attached to the cleaning mechanism for removing toner adhering to the photosensitive member, and includes a toner collecting container for containing toner transported through a discharge pipe. However, in a unit of a toner collecting apparatus integrated with cleaning mechanism, a photosensitive member, etc., for example, the toner collecting apparatus is to be attached to and detached from a main body together with the entire unit during maintenance or replacement of components. When the toner collecting apparatus is thus pulled out from the main body, there is a fear that toner may scatter from a discharge port of the discharge pipe. Therefore, various countermeasures against the scattering of toner have conventionally been proposed.
As the conventionally proposed countermeasures, there is known an apparatus in which a tubular shutter neither is provided at a discharge port of a discharge pipe, and the discharge port of the discharge pipe is closed with the shutter member by a biasing force of elastic biasing members while a toner collecting apparatus is removed from a main body (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. S62-163085 and 2003-162192).
However, when the shutter member comes into contact with an object due to a human factor while the toner collecting apparatus is removed from the main body, the shutter member is moved against the biasing force of the elastic biasing members to allow toner to scatter, which may degrade image quality inside the apparatus and may contaminate the room outside the apparatus. Further, an apparatus provided with a lock member for regulating a shutter member at a closed position has also been proposed (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-162192). However, there still remains a problem that toner adhering to the vicinity of an opening of the shutter member contaminates the hand of a user during operation. Further, in an apparatus in which a full-tank condition of a toner collecting container is detected to give warning by causing a placing tray of the toner collecting container to move up/down according to the weight in order to obtain an amount of toner contained in the toner collecting container, there is a fear that the movement of the toner collecting container may cause trouble with respect to the movement of the shutter member.
On the other hand, in an image forming apparatus such as a color printer and a copying machine, there are widely employed such structures that color-based drum cartridges filled with toner of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (K) are used in terms of the convenience of toner replenishment, and that a photosensitive drum and components in the periphery of the photosensitive drum are placed together in a detachable central processing unit so as to enhance the convenience of maintenance and repair. However, in an image forming apparatus in which color-based drum cartridges are attached for use, if a cartridge is attached to a wrong position, a problem of color mixture occurs, and hence, it is necessary to design so that each cartridge can be attached only to a predetermined position based on a color and cannot be attached to the other positions. Therefore, a technology of attaching an IC tag to a drum cartridge so as to obtain information is known as a conventional technology. In this technology, there is a fear that an unnecessary operation may be caused in replacement because a drum cartridge is not determined unless it is inserted and a power is turned on.